Next try on the following day. On the previous day the whale safari started late because of rough seas and ended early because so many people were seasick (see previous chapter). This is now the second chance. The sea is less rough but still enough to keep the former whaling ship Reine rolling around. This time there are less people on board as many of yesterday’s passengers chose their money back (about €100) rather than a second trip under the very fair terms of the ‘whale guarantee’.The captain studies the sea critically from the upper deck. He doesn’t want another profitless tour.(Link to Whaling Center, Andenes)

After an hour’s trip something unexpected happens. A group of orcas (killer whales) races towards the ship. Later we are told there were about 10 of them, but I was so busy with the camera I had no time to count.The photo shows a mother animal with a young one. Normally orcas come to the Norwegian coast in autumn when they follow the great herring shoals. Orcas typically form family groups or schools which stay together for life. The matriarchal group is led by a female animal and consists of her male and female descendants.(Link: Orcas in Wikipedia)

The mother animal comes to the surface. Orcas are the fastest marine mammals and reach a speed of 55 km/h. They are also called killer whales, although they actually belong to the dolphin family. On a male orca the dorsal fin can be up to 1.8m and the whole body up to 8 m. It is easily understandable that a group of orcas hunting together as a practised team means terror for other marine creatures. They are sometimes called the wolves of the sea.Fortunately they don’t attack humans in the wild and in the winter months diving trips among orcas are offered nearby.

The mother dives again. The young animal can just be seen under water in the lower left corner of the picture. Especially when the animal dives it generates a bow wave. The animals use this effect when they want to hunt a seal sitting on an ice floe. The orcas swim fast as a group towards the ice floe then submerge and the combined bow wave tips up the floe and throws the unfortunate seal into the water to its death. With herrings they have another technique. They swim around the fish shoal in decreasing circles and surround them with a fence of air-bubbles. They beat into this with their tails and then eat the stunned or dead fish. In winter when there are huge shoals of herrings, expeditions (e.g. from Tysfjord) are offered to watch the orcas hunting and at the same time to see the numerous white-tailed eagles gleaning the dead fish from the surface. It is even recorded that an orca in captivity taught itself to hunt gulls by leaving pieces of fish on the surface as bait and then waiting in the depths to pounce on the gulls attracted by the scraps.

Mother and child swimming in formation.Orca females have a baby about every four years. In the first two weeks neither mother nor baby sleep at all, but the child nevertheless gains in weight. The mortality rate in the first year is high.Scratch marks, maybe from fights, are visible on the lighter skin of the mother behind and below the dorsal fin. These can help to identify the individual animal.

An orca starting to dive (to the right). Many large marine animals are sighted near Andenes because there is a deep marine valley in the flat continental shelf to the north of the island of Andoya leading down quickly into the deeper part of the North Atlantic. Warmer and cooler water mix and provide a habitat for rich marine life which attracts the sea mammals. The male sperm whales come here from the equator to feed and to put on the weight that they need as a mating advantage.Although we are very pleased to see the orcas on the whale safari, they represent a problem. As orcas also hunt sperm whales by driving them to exhaustion, the sperm whales will keep their distance from them. So the captain decides to sail further out to sea to look for them. Somewhere they must come up for air.

On the long trip further north there are occasional diversions. Here a pretty fishing boat with its fan-club. As the fish which are caught are gutted on board there are plenty of leftovers to keep the gulls happy.

As a reminder from the previous chapter and as we now have hopes of seeing a sperm whale, here is again the display seen the previous day in the Whale Center.

Which parts of a sperm whale do we actually have a chance of seeing? One of the displays shows the process. On the left the whale spouts on the surface after the last dive and maybe shows its dorsal fin. This repeats several times with the whale disappearing under water (next picture) in between. The third picture shows the whale lifting its massive head (1/3 of the body length) further out of the water. Then the whale decides to dive. It bends in the middle like a surface swimmer diving down into the sea. Then the fluke comes out of the sea and the whale dives down vertically. At up to 1000m it hopes to locate a deep-water squid using its inbuilt sonar. The sound of the sonar can be picked up by a whaling or whale-spotting ship.

At last the first sperm whale is spotted and immediately the ship is a hive of activity. On the right is his long head and the water vapour that he is spouting after his previous dive. On the left is the hump of the dorsal fin. Male sperm whales, and it is males that are seen from Andernes, grow to 18-20m, of which the head alone makes up a third, and up to 50 tonnes.The females, which live with their young in large schools, are much smaller. They don’t migrate so far and stay in warmer water.

The same animal from a different angle. Here the bump of the large blowhole is visible, situated asymmetrically on the left side of the head, and the water vapour from it still lingers in the air. On the right is the dorsal fin.

Sperm whales are toothed whales and are the world’s largest predators. In the underdeveloped lower jaw is a row of huge teeth but these are not for chewing. The sperm whale swallows its prey whole. In its stomach complete sharks and giant squids have been found. How it catches its prey is not known. Its hunting grounds are at depths down to between 1000 and 2500m. A sperm whale has never been observed while hunting or eating. Sucker-marks on their skin witness to the fact that deep-sea fights take place.

When the sperm whale decides to dive, he bend his whole body forward and then raises the tail flukes at first at an angle and then vertically into the air (see series below). In the picture above the water flows off the flukes like an individual curtain matching his individual tail. The edges of the flukes are not smooth but are marked and frayed from wear and tear and maybe from the attacks of orcas. The tail-pattern of each animal forms its personal “fingerprint” which can be used to identify it.

The whales dive for 25-35 minutes, sometimes for over an hour. In complete darkness at 2°C they have to catch their daily tonne of food. The favourite food is the plentiful giant squid. How they find them is not known. One theory says that they recognize them by their fluorescent glow, another that they are found by the sperm whale’s sonar. Clicking sounds are used, which can be increased in volume until the prey could be is stunned by them. (In a National Geographic magazine article, they are quoted as being ‘as loud as a rifle shot three feet from your ear’.) However because of their rather soft bodies squids may not be findable by sonar. Divers diving near sperm whales and who have been located by their sonar say that the clicking is like a shiver through your whole body.

If you wish, you can watch larger pictures of the sperm whale diving sequence by clicking repeatedly onto the picture immediately above this text. The sequence starts with the animal resting on the surface, then moves through to the start of the bending of the spine. Then the tail comes up and the might flukes sink into the sea.

This whale was sighted about an hour later. For about 5-10 minutes the sperm whale recovers from its dive, blows several times, often going under water in between blows. It clears its lungs and breathes in fresh air. During this time the whale watchers have a chance to observe the whale. The dive at the end can be very brief, so there is some competition on deck to get a good view and a good place to take photos.The sperm whale is still an endangered species. The economic value of blubber, spermaceti and ambergris for the engineering and cosmetic industries were very large in the past. In the 1960’s and 70’s over 20000 animals were killed each year. In 1985 an international whaling embargo was started. Whether sperm whales will survive long term survival is not definite.

The last whale picture shows the enormous head of the sperm whale. Unfortunately this whale decided just to swim away and we didn’t see another dive.

It is the content of the head which was especially wanted by industry. About 2 tonnes of spermaceti are inside, a light-coloured waxy substance with a variable consistency that the whale needs to dive. Cooled before the dive it crystallizes, which reduces its size and increases its density, so that the whale can dive with less effort. During the dive oxygen is consumed . The warmth liquefies the spermaceti again giving additional buoyancy and easing the trip back up to the surface.This spermaceti consists of fine oils which the rapidly growing car industry needed urgently as lubricant after the 2nd WW. Because of its appearance it was thought for a long time to be sperm, although it is located in the head, is present in excessive quantities and is also present in female animals. That is the source of the English name of the species.

On the long trip back to port I entertain myself by trying to photograph the fulmars which shoot rapidly past the ship. They often fly low over the waves and even sometimes a bit too close to them (photo left). The flight is elegant with stiff-winged glides.

... and on board we are presented with a trip summary:Sperm whales - 2 close to the boat. Orcas ! - ca. 10 including one young.The trip route from Andenes (lower r.) to the whales flukes is shown in red. The shades of blue show the water depth and the deep marine valley near the coast.Max. distance: 18 Nautical miles (33 km)Max depth: 1400mTemp: 8.5°CWind: 8 m/s (29 km/h)

I return happily to the caravan after a major highlight of my trip to Norway. The whale safari was well organized and most interesting. Warm clothes are very necessary and next time I would remember also to take sun-lotion. I came back with a sun- and wind-burnt face.Fortunately my stomach is usually unaffected by the sea. My personal recommendation to avoid seasickness is: concentrate on the sea around you and do something to occupy you, but I know it doesn’t always work!